


Underground

by Turnandfacethepaige



Series: Labyrinth Au [4]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Final instalment of the Labyrinth au!, Hope everyone likes it!, Loads of Angst, M/M, but it has a happy ending!, hooray!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnandfacethepaige/pseuds/Turnandfacethepaige
Summary: He would no longer need to remember his time in the labyrinth. He would no longer need to remember Mordo.But he could remember him.





	Underground

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I had been thinking of writing a final instalment of this series, but never got round to it, and legit about a week ago I checked my inbox and there was an ask for a final fic??? and who am I to deny my audience?? Also, this is probably ridiculously long, so I am so sorry if you see this and have to get through a mile of my blathering descriptions in order to get to the good stuff :) 
> 
> This series was actually my first ever real series on A03, and it was the first one that got me real attention. Everyone who left me comments on it honestly helped me so much in improving my writing and encouraging me as an author. Even all the kudos meant the world to me. I feel kind of guilty because I haven't been writing for Dr Strange since October, and I haven't been able to write a real fanfiction since November, but honestly, it was so nice to be able to come back and write something for a pairing that really helped me get off the ground with writing. Here's to you Stordo fans; never change.

He’d found it in the attic, half-buried within the crumbling remains of a cardboard box. 

He had returned back home for his father’s funeral, a sombre affair, standing next to the coffin in the graveyard and feeling as though his heart had plummeted down into the soil with it, his face a rigid mask as he tried to hold back the tears that Christine openly cried, her head buried into his step-mother’s shoulder.

His plane back to New York was at 8:30 that evening, and once he’d packed his bag he had nothing left to do but hang around the house, ghosting over relics of his father, or sitting in the living room watching tv and trying to forget the sadness that crawled like an insidious beast within his mind.  

As he glanced around his old childhood room, Stephen wondered whether that was even worth it.

It had changed since his days of early adolescence. Gone where the old boxes of games and jigsaws that piled around the room, the big wooden shelf of teddy-bears, the hundreds of little knights and the sole damsel in her white silk ballgown within a golden jar on his desk. In their place were the posters of the brain and the nervous system that he’d happily papered his room with, the little post-its of scientific terms that he struggled to remember, the fat book that had helped him pass his college exams, the massive encyclopaedia that he had spent countless hours pouring over after dark with a torch, glutting himself on the details of the brain, of the fantasies and dreams and memories concocted within, and the pile after pile after pile of CDs and tapes, stacked near his record player - all the ones he had been unable to bring with him when he moved out. 

He sat on the faded old bedspread, pattered yellow red blue and soft with age, and gazed at the room around him, at the childhood that had come and gone. 

Where had most of that stuff gone? He could remember selling off the jigsaws, and passing along some of the teddies onto Christine once he had tired of them, and he knew for certain that he had sold off his collection of knights in order to buy his cassette player and his first real collection of tapes - 

But he couldn’t remember the fate of the damsel in her jar, spinning in eternal silence within her golden prison. 

It had been a gift from his mother - before she had died - something that she had loved, more an ornament than a toy, and simply more than just something he could peddle off to someone when he had grown too old for it. So where had it gotten to?

Stephen had traipsed downstairs to where Christine was fiddling with her bag, her golden hair piled up in a bun on her head. 

‘Hey, Chris,’ he’d called and she had turned to look up at him, ‘Remember when I cleaned out my room before I left for college? You know - when I sold a ton of those games and stuff? Do you know where we put some of the stuff that I didn’t sell?’

She straightened up. ‘I remember you selling a load of your toys - but I think mom put a bunch of stuff that you left lying around in boxes up in the attic.’

‘Oh.’ 

She stood up. ‘You want to go and see if we can find some of it?’

‘Yeah.’ Stephen said quietly.

‘I’ll go ask mom to get you the keys are.’ she said, and that had been that.

He was glad she didn’t question his desire to suddenly go rootling around for the remnants of his childhood, and all that that he had long since gotten bored of. He knew she had felt the same; he’d heard her sniffling in her room the night before the funeral, and had gone in to see her sitting at her desk, pouring through old photographs of her and dad, the little notebooks that she had kept as she grew up, the pink plastic dolls that she had been obsessed with, as tears dripped down onto the wooden tabletop. The gaping hole that had been left by their father, and the childhood that he’d given them, was something they were still trying to overcome and understand. 

If Stephen wanted to go back into the past, for whatever reason, Christine wouldn’t try to stop him.

She’d emerged a second later, holding a jumble of keys triumphantly in the air. 

‘Come on,’ she said, and together, they trooped up to the top floor, to the small door that had seemed as tall as a forest when Stephen was younger, which Christine unlocked, and pushed open. The attic lay behind a small set of steps, and was shrouded in pitch darkness. Under the gloom, Stephen could make out the jutting edges of cardboard boxes, stacked neatly on top of each other.

Christine reached to the wall and flipped on the light, even as Stephen was beginning to make his way up the steps, gingerly placing one foot after the other on the creaking, worryingly soft wood. 

‘So,’ she said, ‘Do you want some help finding your stuff? Or do you wanna be alone for a bit?’

‘Yeah,’ Stephen said, his eyes scanning the boxes, wildly hoping that for some inexplicable reason, the boxes he wanted would just magically zap into place. ‘I’d like to be alone.’

He heard her sigh, heard something that sounded like she was rubbing her hand through her hair, and then the creak of footsteps as she began to walk away.

‘Alright. Just make sure you don’t lose track of time and miss your flight.’

He murmured a reply and began to set about the boxes. They were labelled neatly with sprawling black sharpie, with titles like **DINING SET, CHRISTINE, 1994 - 1996, BOOKS.**

Lying amongst the box declared to contain baby pictures and old chinaware, Stephen found a box labelled **STEPHEN’S ROOM 1,** but when he tore it open, all that was within it was a pile of curling David Bowie and Queen posters, and some of his old clothing back from when he was eighteen and thought a neon windbreaker was the height of coolness.

He shoved it to the side, and came face to face with another, smaller box, whose edges were beginning to crumble, little holes from little nibbling mouthes winking at him from the cardboard sides. Written on the side were the words **STEPHEN’S ROOM 2.**

Slowly, carefully, he pulled it out from the dark crevasse it had been shoved into, and gingerly pulled away the flaking sellotape.  
 ****

At first, he wasn’t sure what it was he was looking at - it was so wiry and greying with fluff and dust that it looked more like an unknown species of mushroom than anything made for human eyes. But then he reached in, and his fingers connected with soft fur, made smooth with love and age, and he gripped it tightly and pulled out into the light of day Lancelot, his old teddy-bear. Lancelot looked a lot less handsome than he had when he was fourteen - with little bald patches appearing on his arms, a fine coating of dust, and a glittering black eye drooping from the side of his head - but it was him, nevertheless. Lancelot, who had gone on countless nighttime adventures with him.

Setting him down, Stephen found a cluster of books - further inspection revealed them to be the beautiful painted book of fairy tales he had been given when he was seven -, a handful of chipped grey knights with snapped of lances, a tatty crown that was more plastic green than gold, and an old white silk waistcoat from the days when he believed that wearing it made him look like the height of sophistication. He set the jacket down, and brought his hand down into the box, connecting with glass, smooth and cold beneath his fingertips. Reaching down, he had gripped it, and raised it from the dusty box, like Arthur withdrawing Excalibur. 

It was the little silver damsel, her goofy silver dress still as beautiful as it was all those years ago, perfectly coiffed brown hair pouring down her shoulders, gazing out from her glass jar, waiting for her one last chance to twirl into eternity.

Stephen had smiled, the sweet little thing bringing what felt like the first smile of many months to his face, had set it down carefully, a good space behind him so he wouldn’t accidentally crush it when he stood up, turned back to the box and saw -

The book.

Lying right underneath where the little damsel had been, was a single, slim book, with a red leather cover, embossed with curling gold print.

_Labyrinth._

Labyrinth. 

Stephen could feel the still air of the attic freeze around him. 

He’d … he’d forgotten all about that book. All about the story which he had recited, and played out, and acted, and loved and cried over again and again and again when he was barely old enough to understand what it was supposed to mean. He’d forgotten all about the little red book that had fitted so snugly within his waistcoat pocket, thumbed over on the bus or in the pause between lessons, until the pages had become buttery soft and rounded on the edges. He’d even forgotten about all the times he had dragged out Marvin by his leash into the park, dolled up to look like a prince, and recited long passages at him, until Marvin licked him into silence.

But he hadn’t forgotten about - about -

About Mordo.

Slowly, his hands shaking slightly, as though the book would suddenly fly open and sink fanged pages into his fingers, he reached down and withdrew the book from the box.

The Goblin King. The ruler of the labyrinth. 

The whole reason why he had gotten into that whole mess to begin with.

No - no, that was wrong. It had been his fault - the idiot who wanted to get rid of his baby sister by reading out a curse from a story book. But then again, what kind of person would think that curses from story books came true anyways? That sort of crap only happened in movies and dreams, and not in the real world. The whole idea of the labyrinth itself was an elaborate joke, a metaphor for a child growing up into adulthood. Nothing more and nothing less than a coming-of-age story. It should never have happened. 

But it _had_ happened. And Mordo had come, and Stephen had ventured through a dusty old labyrinth, met friends, met creatures that defied reality, and had won back his baby sister, and returned to the real world.

Hadn’t he?

It had been strange - the first few months after the labyrinth was over. Those friends he had met along the way had slowly dissipated from his mind, and even now, he struggled to put half-formed names to the blurred faces and muffled voices that his memories supplied. Christine continued to scream her head off almost every other night, even after getting trapped within another world, and all those strange beings that he had met all seemed to seem more and more like waxwork statues in a fire; figures and faces melting into nothingness, and each day after the labyrinth made them seem more and more like an elaborate dream. 

Because where his mind struggled with the others, with the landscape, it never failed him on one person.

Mordo. 

For some time after the adventure, when he was beginning to stay awake long into the night gazing at text books filled with pictures of brains until his eyes itched, he had wondered why it was Mordo, above all else, that he was able to remember clearly. He could still see his panther-like stride down the ballroom steps, hear his heels clicking against stone flagstones, see his figure rising up from the floor in front of Kaecilius - _Kaecilius! That_ was his name! - clothed in sleek grey tights. 

And then - as if trying to compete with this inability to understand whether any of it was real or just Mordo - he decided to try and forget him, to shove all memories of the man right to the back of his head, and pretend like he couldn’t remember anything. It would be the best thing for him, trying to get through stressful exams, and eyeballing brain diagrams every night as he got ready to sit exams and get ready for university and the real world that awaited him when he joined it. 

What use was a stupid old dream of a character from a story book when he had actual, important things to focus on? 

And so he had passed almost twenty years under this guise of disbelief, carrying on with school and graduating, throwing out the dusty remains of his childhood, and gearing up for the university that would prepare him for the real world. 

He had gotten through all those years dissecting and studying and learning and cramming about brains with the belief that once it was all over, and he was scrubbed up, mask on, and music playing along as he snipped and sliced and drilled away at whatever poor bastard lay below him, then he could get on the right track, that he could finally get on with his life. He would be who he was always meant to be - Doctor Stephen Strange, brain surgeon, and totally in control, and not some sad, miserable little fourteen year old who had thought for the briefest of seconds that a man who had walked out from a storybook would make him and his life better than his dreams.

He would no longer need to remember his time in the labyrinth. He would no longer need to remember Mordo. 

But he could remember him. 

He could remember him and more, more, more - it was all a facade, a mask that he wore to try and cover what had been left behind in that labyrinth that day, and for all that Stephen could pretend to forget and to glaze over and get on with his life, he could remember so much more.

He could remember the feeling of Mordo’s gloved hand, supporting his own as he whirled him round a ballroom to dance, bright eyes gleaming as he had tripped and stumbled in unfamiliar shoes. He could remember Mordo passing through him, a wave of ice and static, and falling off the ledge of a balcony, only to return, seconds later, on the other side of the room.

And he could remember his voice, the lull of his tongue around every vowel, the prideful little smirk that had danced with him in the ballroom, the soft whisper in his ear, his sugar breath tickling the back of his neck.

And on nights when he had had too much to drink, got too lonely, got back home from the hospital and collapsed, exhausted and wrecked onto his bed, he heard his voice, whispering, as clear as the day it had happened, in his ear.

_‘I ask for so little. Just_ ** _fear me’_** and a tingle of warmth would spread down his spine, ‘ ** _love me’_** and he would feel something like electricity spark in his stomach, spreading across his body, down to his toes and up to his fingertips, so comfortable and warm, like a lover’s caress, ‘ _and I will be your slave.’_

And the words would rise to a lilting whisper - not the weeping plea that had been Mordo’s last words to him - and for a moment, for one heart-stopping, tantalising moment, Stephen could _see_ Mordo, lying across his bed from him, clad in his velvet cloak and silk shirt, his hair pooling around him, hand outstretched, cupping his jaw, mouth dropping open, tongue spreading a clear gloss across flushed lips, and he would get closer, closer, closer, until Stephen could hear the thrum of the Goblin King’s heartbeat just above his own, the smell of vanilla milkshake and the promise of a forbidden eternity in silken sheets and heated skin, and he could _feel_ the heat of him, _feel_ his gloved hands caressing him, _feel_ his body lying next to him, so close that he could reach out _and touch him back -_

And then he would jolt awake, eyes flying open to a stark New York morning and the silence of his room. And just as if the universe couldn’t shove his mistakes in his face enough, just as if to send one last jeer that he truly had screwed up, there would be a throbbing reminder between his legs that could only be dealt with with a cold shower or a quick, brutal jerk off. 

He wasn’t doomed to his punishment for long. Only forever. 

And that wasn’t long at all.

All those years since the labyrinth, and he had just been living a dream - a dream of pretending that none of what had occurred in the labyrinth made the slightest difference. 

He had spent years living in the real world, giving it all that he had. It couldn’t hurt him to dream a little.

That was what he told himself as he slipped the book into his overnight back, carefully wrapping it between layers of shirts and sweaters, as if the pages would crack like glass on the plane home. He had wrapped the silver damsel in layers of newspaper before putting her in a carry-on bag, her domed outline resting just so against the plastic bag. 

It’s what he told himself the entire plane ride home, gazing out of the window, thinking only of the little book pressed up against the bag, and the glass jar that rested in his lap.

He deserved to dream. He deserved that at least.

 

****

 

The funeral had been two months ago,

Now he sat in his office at the hospital , the lights dimmed to only the small orange light that came from the lamp on his desk. His shift had ended about an hour ago, and whilst his colleagues and coworkers had shifted back into their normal clothing and slumped out into the night to either drink it away or keel over into their beds and remain like that until the morning. 

But Stephen had remained. He’d shrugged off their offers of grabbing a beer, or heading off to get dinner somewhere, or even their raised eyebrows over his choice to slump into his chair, still in his scrubs - now slightly grubby from the end of the day - and bare toes from where he’d tugged off his rubber shoes, instead of doing something that allowed them to escape from the liquid beeps of IV machines, and the steady drip of blood onto the operating room floors.

But he’d refused. And once their backs were turned, and the corridor outside his office had been reduced to silence, he’d reached into the drawer and pulled out, from amidst the thumbed through files and bulging dossiers of brain scans and old notebooks, the thin red book, soft against his fingertips.

He’d brought the book over from his apartment the day after he’d landed back in New York. For some reason, it felt wrong to leave it at home. Like it was wrong to be separated from the treasure that had led him to the labyrinth so soon as he had found it. He would read it after work, he told himself, when he had some spare time after a surgery, or when he was on his way back home by bus or train (not that he ever took the bus or the train), or just at some random moment, where he could pick up a book and sink right into it.

But it wasn’t just any book. 

Maybe that was why, Stephen rationalised as he began to carefully open the soft leather cover, he had been unable to read the book for so long. Because it wasn’t just some shitty paperback he could glaze over for a couple of hours and then put aside and forget it in about a weeks time. 

This was _Labyrinth._ This was something that was more than just a plot and chunks of words stamped to pages.

This was a part of him.

Mordo, Kaecilius, Wong, the Ancient One, for all that he had pretended to glaze over and forget them, the only reason why he had been able to meet them was because of the book in front of him. 

And who knew what he would get when he opened it again?

He lifted the book up, resting his elbows on his desk, like he had always done when he was younger, and began to read.

Two hours later found him at the moment when the heroine had finally ventured into the goblin city, to confront the evil Goblin King, and Stephen was surprised at just how simple the prose was. It certainly hadn’t seemed like this when he was younger. It had seemed so much richer, and longer, flowing like an inky river across the page, drawing him in and down into the depths of the labyrinth. Now it just read like a fairytale would read.

It frustrated him - he’d almost chucked the book halfway across the room when he’d reached the part where the girl, Hoggle, and Ludo had arrived at the Bog of Eternal Stench to meet Sir Didimus. Didimus had just turned into an annoying, parroting little irritant, and Hoggle just an infuriating moron who had been willing to betray the heroine because the Goblin King had threatened to get him a little smelly. It was almost heartbreaking - to see the story that he had devoted so much time to be revealed to be a trite little fairy tale.

How could this have been the great story he thought it was? _How?_

He looked down at the page. At the girl, who stood, chin raised against the mighty Goblin King, who stood arrogant and prideful before her, betting away the life of her brother on a chip of belonging to the labyrinth for ever. 

Stephen knew what came next. The speech, the sweeping music, the piercing silence, and then the shriek of the Goblin King as he realised he had been foiled. And then smiling, happy children, and a happy ever fucking after.

He put the book down.

There hadn’t been a speech for him. No sweeping music and a happily ever after. What there had been was a king, standing before him on the edge of oblivion, holding on tight and begging him to stay, his skin onyx, his hair ebony, and his eyes had glittered and gleamed with tears that shone like dying stars that dripped down his face and hit the fragmented marble beneath them.

And after that had only been heartbreak.

No, Stephen could feel his anger rising up as the printed words blurred and swept across him, there had been no heartbreak. No heartbreak at all, because heartbreak didn’t come from stupid dreams of beautiful kings, heartbreak came from death and rejection and the _real world._ Not this trite - not this stupid, stupid fairy tale that he had wasted his life on. This stupid story that had stolen years from him that could have been spent doing, _becoming,_ better, and what had he gained from it? Only a yearning for a dream that could never be reached again, and a craving for something he could never have.

Because that was all it was. It hadn’t been real. The labyrinth was just a wild dream he had concocted to deal with the death of his mother, the remarriage of his father, the new presence of his step-mother and the spiteful jealousy that had grown, sick and leering within him when Christine had been born. Oh yes, that had been it. Just a delusion on behalf of a miserable fourteen year old who was too much of a pathetic dreamer to face up to the real world. 

Stephen was breathing heavily, his fists clenching the book so hard his knuckles shocked white against his skin. He stood up, and slammed the book, as hard as he could, across the room. It connected to the wall with a slap before sliding down and hitting the floor.

‘That’s all it was,’ Stephen could hear himself seethe, above his pounding heartbeat, the fury that rose within him, almost uncontrollable, ‘That’s all this was. Just a dream. It was all just a _dream.’_

A dream that stole from him. A dream that had carved itself into him and when he had finally shrugged it off, it had reached in and stolen everything from him.

How could he have done this to himself? he thought furiously, How could he had wasted his life chasing after some stupid book?

‘A stupid, stupid dream,’ he continued, his hands clenched so tight he could now feel his palms throb, ‘How could I - how _could I have-‘_

His gaze returned back to the slumped red book, which lay almost sadly on the floor. He was marching over to it and snatching it up before he could understand why.

‘You stupid thing,’ he hissed, ripping through the pages, his anger growing with every page that flipped by, ‘A bunch of lies and dreams, that’s all you ever where. Now - now - ah yes, yes, let’s see,’ he ripped the pages open to almost the front of the book, the fury still in his voice even as the tears began to trickle down his nose and softly splatter the page. ‘Yes, to summon the Goblin King, just stand alone and make some silly little chant. Just say, “Iwish the goblins would come and take you away.”’

He threw the book down once again, and his anger fell away with it, hitting the floor. The anger seemed to ebb away, and flowing into its place were the tears that he had been holding back since he had found the damn thing in the attic.

He scrunched his face, clenched his eyes tight, even as his tears began to seep down his face, roll off his chin, took in a shuddering breath and spoke, his voice cracking with rage, heartbreak and tears.

‘But that won’t work,’ he whispered, his shoulders starting to shake without his control, ‘That won’t work - it’s not real. It’s not real, you silly boy. None of it’s real. He’s not going to come for you.’

‘Aren’t I?’

Stephen nearly damn well choked on his own tongue.

He snapped around like he’d been electrified, a sort of tingling shock and amazement brimming in his stomach, the book by his feet now forgotten, eyes wide even as the tears began to fall.

And even as he watched, the door to his office flung open, as a flash of light so powerful, so strong that it left a livid blotch of colour in his after vision, spanned the contents of the room, covering the floor, the walls. He was vaguely aware of something laughing, a hideous little chuckling laugh, high pitched and synthetic, crawling around the floor, from somewhere around the book. 

The light flashed, and suddenly the door was thrown open, the door handle turning on its own accord, with a blast of ice cold air and a flash of glittering feathers, as a snowy white owl swooped down, whirling down at him. Stephen brought his hands up to his face, gasping as the hard talons snatched and scrambled at his forearms and at his hair, the beating wings smelling of something cold and distant, like from long forgotten place. He reached out wildly to shove it away, his hand connecting with a feathery body. He brought his arms down, and raising his head, his eyes squinting against the sheer brightness of the light that swarmed the room, he saw a shadow growing from the open doorway, growing longer and bolder, lengthening in shape. The light that surrounded him began to die down, slipping away, as though drawn to the shadow of the figure that stretched form the doorway, and as it did, Stephen saw - saw - _saw -_

_Mordo._

Stephen felt his jaw drop the slightest, his brain struggling to catch up and comprehend with what his eyes saw. 

Mordo - the man who had haunted his dreams and his mind since he was fourteen, the man who had offered him anything he wanted if only he would remain with him, the Goblin King who had chased him - stood before him, his black velvet cloak billowing in front of him, hands on his hips, and his level, impassive stare boring at him from the doorway.

Stephen stared. It seemed like the only thing that he could possibly do at this point. After all, the man who had just broken his heart had essentially kicked down the door, chucked at an owl at him, and was looking at him in a way similar to someone who was looking down at a whimpering puppy which had a clearly visible knife behind its back. 

What could he say?

So Stephen said, ‘You could have knocked.’

He voice sounded croaky and hoarse from the crying and shouting. It seemed to dissipate the tension, at least on a minuscule fraction, as Mordo took a step into his office, hands still on his hips, walking with the swagger of a king in a land he had already decided would be his own. 

Mordo opened his mouth, and Stephen felt a leap of excitement rise within him, knowing that he would hear that rumbling purr again, for real, for the first time in what felt like eternity, directed at him once again.

‘And what fun would that have been, Stephen?’ Mordo asked softly.

He had come closer, almost an arms distance away from him, and Stephen could see that his features didn’t seem to have aged one inch since he had last seen him; he was as youthful and as beautiful as he had been then. His flowing hair that trickled and rolled around his shoulders didn’t have a speck of white in its inky depth, unlike the swathes of gray that pattered along his sideburns (and that one clump of white he’d found in his hairbrush a while back, but that wasn’t worth remembering)

Mordo seemed to have noticed his almost ravenous staring, as he tilted his head, and let a wide, prideful smirk saunter its way across his face, dark eyes glittering almost mischievously. 

‘Like what you see, old man?’ he purred.

Stephen laughed something that sounded more like a gasp, his smile struggling to remain fixed, his eyes raking across Mordo, at the man who had thought to be a dream, a fairy tale, a story, now here, now alive, now _back._

‘Old man…’ he shook his head.

‘Old man indeed,’ Mordo’s smirk grew wider. ‘That’s a lovely shade of gray you’re wearing there, Stephen. I do believe it suits you.’

Stephen really didn’t know how to reply to that.

Mordo took another step, and the leap of excitement almost lunged up Stephen’s throat as the scent of his hair, sweet as vanilla milkshakes wafted across the slowly dwindling space between them. 

‘In fact,’ he murmured, and he reached out with a gloved hand to touch his cheekbones, the long black leather tracing the bone that nestled beneath delicate flesh, ‘I do believe that I prefer this age on you.’

Stephen couldn’t move. His entire body had centred on the digits touching him, the coolness of the leather and the solid heat of Mordo’s hand that lay inside it, like it was the centre of his world, and Mordo was keeping him there.

His mind drifted back to Mordo’s words, at the impossibility of it all - that a line from a storybook had called him back from the land of dreams. This had to be real - very much so. The feeling of Mordo’s glove, the hoots of the owl as it had launched itself at him, the smell of Mordo’s sweet hair - that alone told him it had to be real. The senses weren’t easy to manipulate, even in dreams. This was real. It was all real. 

And if it was real, if Mordo was real, then so had the labyrinth. 

Could he - could he go back there?

As if reading his mind, Mordo murmured, ‘All those years, and you never truly lost me, did you?’

Stephen swallowed. He started, stammering in his haste to get all the right words out, ‘I - I thought it was a dream - all something I made up - and I - I - I couldn’t - I couldn’t understand - I didn’t know why - why - why -‘

Mordo blinked, slowly, and Stephen realised that this close up he could see the dark thickness of his eyelashes.

He swallowed. He took a breath. Stammering and making a fool of himself was going to get him nowhere.

‘I couldn’t understand why I didn’t stay.’ He whispered.

Mordo didn’t say anything for a moment. He simply looked at Stephen, dark eyes pinned to his face, not revealing any secrets that whirred below the surface. 

And then he said, ‘Why did you turn me away, all those years ago? I offered you everything you could have wanted. Anything you could have possibly wanted that you didn’t even know at the time. I saw it - I saw it in your eyes. You wanted to stay, you wanted to stay with me, but,’ he hesitated, tongue darting out to wet his lips. ‘But I never understood why you would reject all that I offered you.’

Reality. School. His dad. That was why. 

But his dad was gone now. School was but a distant memory. And reality?

Where were the rewards he’d gotten for staying in reality? Just a lonely brain surgeon who couldn’t even keep a date, and who only remembered to go home when it was time for his father’s funeral. 

What could the world possibly offer that Mordo couldn’t?

Stephen said, quietly, ‘I thought I wanted to come back, back to my world.’

Mordo’s eyebrows shot up.

‘But I didn’t.’ he continued, ‘I only thought I did. I had stuff going on - you know, school and exams and stuff. And I couldn’t abandon them for the labyrinth. And,’ he swallowed. ‘And my dad. I couldn’t leave my dad.’

Mordo frowned. ‘I may not know much about your school here, but something tells me, Stephen, that you’ve already done everything you could in your field of learning.’

 

Stephen felt a small laugh bubble up. ‘Yeah, you’re right about that.’

 

‘And your father?’

 

‘He’s - he’s not in the picture anymore.’ He didn’t want to remember his father anymore than he had to. He’d struggled enough with coming to terms with his death, and the loss that had come with it. He didn’t want Mordo to know anymore than he had to. 

If he could go with Mordo - go back to the labyrinth - then he didn’t need a connection with this world anymore. Or with anyone.

Mordo said softly, ‘I see.’

He had brought his hands in front of him, knitting his fingers together, waiting patiently for Stephen to start speaking again. 

This was his moment. It was going to be now or never.

He licked his lips, and asked, slowly, testing out the waters, ‘Remember how you asked me to stay with you? To be with you in the labyrinth?’

Mordo said, without unfolding his hands or even changing his facial expression, ‘You want to come back with me, don’t you, Stephen?’

‘Yes,’ Stephen whispered, ‘Yes, please, _please.’_

Mordo simply looked at him, like the man before him hadn’t begged him once more for a wish he had rejected all those years ago, like he wasn’t begging for him to give him another chance now. 

And then he was reaching into his cloak, into the depth of the velvet folds, before bringing his hand out to reveal a single crystal ball, sitting perfectly in the dip of his palm. He held it up to Stephen’s eye level, the light of the forgotten lamp making the top shine like a sun in the velvet night of his glove.

He said, ‘Do you remember this?’ Stephen nodded. Of course he could remember. ‘Then you’ll remember what it was I told you the last time I gave you an offer. So, look at what I’m offering you, Stephen Strange, and look hard and long, and then you tell me, like you mean it, that you want what I’m offering, because if you refuse me again, I promise you that it will be the last time you ever see me.’

With his words ringing in his ears like bells, Stephen looked at the ball.

At first, he couldn’t see anything, merely the clear rays of light reflected by the ball into his eyes. But then the glass began to contort, like someone running their fingers through the surface of a body of water, rippling and blossoming, the clear glass shifting until an image began to break through.

It was the view of the Goblin castle from the very edge of the labyrinth, the sky burning a glowing orange, the endless maze of the labyrinth itself a solid black lump against the burning sky. It was almost exactly like it had been when he had seen after being dragged into it by Mordo - and the scene so familiar, so like coming back home, that Stephen couldn’t help but let out a low gasp.

The image changed again, this time to the courtyard of the castle, to where a dog with floppy ears and a saddle round its middle was ambling off towards a fountain - and hot on its tails was the Ancient One, shaking her fist and squeaking with fury, as behind her trailed Kaeiclius and Wong, laughing at her efforts to get her steed back.

And then it distorted once more - to a darkened stairway, panning to a darkened room, where, in the middle, sat a bronze throne, piled high to the sides with jewellery and riches, with a long swagger stick with a large glittering diamond stuck in the top resting across the arms. And beside it, almost half-concealed within shadow and within dream, was a slim, silver throne, the colour of a silken waistcoat, and softly studded with little twinkling diamonds - the perfect throne for a ruling king.

The image swirled before him for another minute before dissipating into nothing. Just a glass ball within Mordo’s hand.

Stephen looked from the ball to the Goblin King’s carefully passive eyes.

‘Stephen,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m offering you a place alongside me. Alongside the labyrinth. From now until forever. You and I, ruling down underground, just the two of us - the kings of the goblins. And all that I ask-‘

He broke off, hesitating, and for a moment, a brief, shattering moment as if a shuttered curtain had been thrown open on Mordo’s face, Stephen saw him as he had been at the edge of oblivion - an onyx angel pleading, begging with a boy who had run through his game to stay with him just a little longer, just a little more. Mordo’s eyes looked dead into his, dark whirling pools of emotion, like he was trying, aiming with all of his might to implore Stephen to come with him, to rule alongside him in a throne he had spent years crafting and sculpting in the hopes that the teenage boy who had captured his heart would call for him again. 

He cleared his throat. ‘All that I ask is that you let me in. Let me in to your heart and your mind - all that I ask is that you love me, and trust in me, believe that I can carry out all that I promised to you, and I swear that I will do the same.’

Stephen looked at him. He knew his answer. Had known it since he’d laid eyes on that slim red book at the bottom of the box in the attic.

He’d given enough to reality. He deserved a chance to dream.

Stephen took a step forward, reached out and captured the hand that lay motionless by Mordo’s side. He gently pushed back the black silken sleeve to touch Mordo’s bare forearm, before reaching up and pulling the glove off his hand. He took Mordo’s hand, felt the soft warmth of his skin, the calloused pads of his fingertips, the sweaty palm of his trembling hand, and brought it up to his lips, pressing his mouth against his skin.

‘Yes,’ he breathed, ‘Of course I will.’

The look on Mordo’s face was something to treasure for a lifetime. He looked nothing short of gobsmacked, his eyes wide and shocked. Like he couldn’t believe that this was really happening.

For a moment, he did nothing but stare.

And then he raised the crystal ball upwards, and a spark of orange light burst forth, washing Stephen’s vision with a blinding wave of light. He closed his eyes against the sheer force of it all, clinging on tightly to the hand within his own, even as he started to feel the earth shift and writhe beneath him, began to feel a heat worm its way across his body, feel the atmosphere around him change.

Even stranger, he felt his body almost bubble beneath the skin, felt his hair tingle and shiver, his face tighten and squeeze against his skull, felt the thin scrubs he wore twist and tighten and stretch and twitch around his body.

Mordo’s voice, soft and quiet, whispered, ‘Open your eyes, Stephen. Look at what’s around you.’

Stephen did.

He was standing in the burning orange glow of a sunset, the golden rays of fading sunlight stark against the huge outline of a castle in the distance. And just before the castle, black and chunky and bold and huge was -

The labyrinth. 

He was _back._

He looked down at where his hand still remained, clenched around Mordo’s and realised, with a jolt of shock, that his skin was smoother, cleaner, younger, no longer cracked and dry with age and a surgeon’s skill. He moved his hands to his hair, and was shocked to find it shorter, fluffier, softer, no longer slightly thinning around the edges, or clipped at the back. He looked down at his body, and realised that he was wearing the white shirt and silver waistcoat that he had so often adorned whilst on his many dreamings about the labyrinth - and which he had worn into the labyrinth itself.

He was younger - his fourteen year old self - the fourteen year old dreamer who had stumbled across a fairy world, triumphed against the goblin king, and by all manner of means, made his way back again.

He looked up at Mordo. 

The Goblin King was looking at him almost nervously, his gloved hand fiddling with his ungloved hand, expectantly peering at Stephen for any signs of distress.

‘You made me young again?’ Stephen whispered, almost unable to believe what was happening to him right now.

Mordo shrugged, almost carelessly, if not for the way his hands suddenly, nervously, clenched. 

‘Something tells me,’ he said, almost casually, ‘That you wanted a chance to go back to the way things were before. If you don’t like it, I can always change you back-‘

‘No.’ Stephen walked over to him, reaching out and taking his hand. ‘No. It’s better this way.’

Mordo blinked. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I never had enough time to enjoy being a kid. I think I got forced to grow up too quickly too soon. It’ll be good for me to let go for once.’

Mordo’s mouth twitched into a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling, eyes glittering like stars. He looked astounding - no more the sad, weeping onyx angel, no the prowling, purring predator in a ballroom, nor even an Escher nightmare. Just a boy, in love with another, who finally got what he had always craved. He looked more human than Stephen had ever seen him before.

That was probably why he kissed him. That and Mordo had no reason to be that cute without getting something in return.

His lips were soft and warm, and tasted faintly of something sweet and spicy. For a moment, he didn’t kiss back, too stunned by Stephen’s action to respond. And then he was intertwining his hands with Stephen’s own, holding on like he knew Stephen would be there to come back to, and he kissed him back with nothing short of love. He opened his mouth slightly, nibbling a little on Stephen’s lower lip.

Christine would be fine, Stephen rationalised, she was all grown up by now. She could deal with herself. There was nothing he had left behind that was worth anything unsolved. He didn’t need any reason to go back.

He was here now. 

With one final, lingering kiss, Mordo pulled back, his smile now a glittering, cheerful grin.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, ‘Let’s go home.’

That was it. Home. 

Mordo led Stephen down the little path towards the entrance of the labyrinth, and the entrance of the kingdom that was now theirs. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed that! I know I did! 
> 
> I'm going to try and keep writing more, but it's going to be a bit difficult for me at the moment, since I'm getting ready to take university exams, and I'm actually applying for creative writing, which means I have to get my portfolio ready! which means writing things that aren't fanfiction ("apparently" universities don't appreciate you sending them some good old fashion fanfics lol), and I'm probably going to be filled up until May, early June, so I'll try to get into a proper writing schedule by then! 
> 
> Other than that, thank you all for everything!


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